“You broke the knife,” he said.
“No, I didn’t. I wanted it whole, so we could get away. You were the one who broke it.”
Lyra’s voice came urgently: “Will?” she muttered. “Is that Will?”
“Lyra!” he said, and knelt quickly beside her. Ama was helping her sit up.
“What’s happening?” Lyra said. “Where are we? Oh, Will, I had this dream…”
“We’re in a cave. Don’t move too fast, you’ll get dizzy. Just take it carefully. Find your strength. You’ve been asleep for days and days.”
Her eyes were still heavy, and she was racked by deep yawns, but she was desperate to be awake, and he helped her up, putting her arm over his shoulder and taking much of her weight. Ama watched timidly, for now that the strange girl was awake, she was nervous of her. Will breathed in the scent of Lyra’s sleepy body with a happy satisfaction: she was here, she was real.
They sat on a rock. Lyra held his hand and rubbed her eyes.
“What’s happening, Will?” she whispered.
“Ama here got some powder to wake you up,” he said, speaking very quietly, and Lyra turned to the girl, seeing her for the first time, and put her hand on Ama’s shoulder in thanks. “I got here as soon as I could,” Will went on, “but some soldiers did, too. I don’t know who they are. We’ll get out as soon as we can.”
Outside, the noise and confusion were reaching a height; one of the gyropters had taken a fusillade from a zeppelin’s machine gun while the riflemen were jumping out on the cliff top, and it burst into flames, not only killing the crew but also preventing the remaining gyropters from landing.
Another zeppelin, meanwhile, had found a clear space farther down the valley, and the crossbow men who disembarked from it were now running up the path to reinforce those already in action. Mrs. Coulter was following as much as she could see from the cave mouth, and now she raised her pistol, supporting it with both hands, and took careful aim before firing. Will saw the flash from the muzzle, but heard nothing over the explosions and gunfire from outside.
If she does that again, he thought, I’ll rush and knock her over, and he turned to whisper that to Balthamos; but the angel was nowhere near. Instead, Will saw with dismay, he was cowering against the wall of the cave, back in his angel form, trembling and whimpering.
“Balthamos!” Will said urgently. “Come on, they can’t hurt you! And you have to help us! You can fight – you know that – you’re not a coward – and we need you – ”
But before the angel could reply, something else happened.
Mrs. Coulter cried out and reached down to her ankle, and simultaneously the golden monkey snatched at something in midair, with a snarl of glee.
A voice – a woman’s voice – but somehow minute – came from the thing in the monkey’s paw:
“Tialys! Tialys!”
It was a tiny woman, no bigger than Lyra’s hand, and the monkey was already pulling and pulling at one of her arms so that she cried out in pain. Ama knew he wouldn’t stop till he’d torn it off, but Will leapt forward as he saw the pistol fall from Mrs. Coulter’s hand.
And he caught the gun – but then Mrs. Coulter fell still, and Will became aware of a strange stalemate.
The golden monkey and Mrs. Coulter were both utterly motionless. Her face was distorted with pain and fury, but she dared not move, because standing on her shoulder was a tiny man with his heel pressed against her neck, his hands entwined in her hair; and Will, through his astonishment, saw on that heel a glistening horny spur and knew what had caused her to cry out a moment before. He must have stung her ankle.
But the little man couldn’t hurt Mrs. Coulter anymore, because of the danger his partner was in at the hands of the monkey; and the monkey couldn’t harm her , in case the little man dug his poison spur into Mrs. Coulter’s jugular vein. None of them could move.
Breathing deeply and swallowing hard to govern the pain, Mrs. Coulter turned her tear‑dashed eyes to Will and said calmly, “So, Master Will, what do you think we should do now?”
Chapter 13. Tialys And Salmakia
Holding the heavy gun, Will swept his hand sideways and knocked the golden monkey off his perch, stunning him so that Mrs. Coulter groaned aloud and the monkey’s paw relaxed enough to let the tiny woman struggle free.
In a moment she leapt up to the rocks, and the man sprang away from Mrs. Coulter, both of them moving as quickly as grasshoppers. The three children had no time to be astonished. The man was concerned: he felt his companion’s shoulder and arm tenderly, and embraced her swiftly before calling to Will.
“You! Boy!” he said, and although his voice was small in volume, it was as deep as a grown man’s. “Have you got the knife?”
“Of course I have,” said Will. If they didn’t know it was broken, he wasn’t going to tell them.
“You and the girl will have to follow us. Who is the other child?”
“Ama, from the village,” said Will.
“Tell her to return there. Move now, before the Swiss come.”
Will didn’t hesitate. Whatever these two intended, he and Lyra could still get away through the window he’d opened behind the bush on the path below.
So he helped her up and watched curiously as the two small figures leapt on – what? Birds? No, dragonflies, as large as seagulls, which had been waiting in the darkness. Then they darted forward to the cave mouth, where Mrs. Coulter lay. She was half‑stunned with pain and drowsy from the Chevalier’s sting, but she reached up as they went past her, and cried:
“Lyra! Lyra, my daughter, my dear one! Lyra, don’t go! Don’t go!”
Lyra looked down at her, anguished; but then she stepped over her mother’s body and loosened Mrs. Coulter’s feeble clutch from her ankle. The woman was sobbing now; Will saw the tears glistening on her cheeks.
Crouching just beside the cave mouth, the three children waited until there was a brief pause in the shooting, and then followed the dragonflies as they darted down the path. The light had changed: as well as the cold anbaric gleam from the zeppelins’ floodlights, there was the leaping orange of flames.
Will looked back once. In the glare Mrs. Coulter’s face was a mask of tragic passion, and her daemon clung piteously to her as she knelt and held out her arms, crying:
“Lyra! Lyra, my love! My heart’s treasure, my little child, my only one! Oh, Lyra, Lyra, don’t go, don’t leave me! My darling daughter – you’re tearing my heart – ”
And a great and furious sob shook Lyra herself, for, after all, Mrs. Coulter was the only mother she would ever have, and Will saw a cascade of tears run down the girl’s cheeks.
But he had to be ruthless. He pulled at Lyra’s hand, and as the dragonfly rider darted close to his head, urging them to hurry, he led her at a crouching run down the path and away from the cave. In Will’s left hand, bleeding again from the blow he’d landed on the monkey, was Mrs. Coulter’s pistol.
“Make for the top of the cliff,” said the dragonfly rider, “and give yourself up to the Africans. They’re your best hope.”
Mindful of those sharp spurs, Will said nothing, though he hadn’t the least intention of obeying. There was only one place he was making for, and that was the window behind the bush; so he kept his head low and ran fast, and Lyra and Ama ran behind him.
“Halt!”
There was a man, three men, blocking the path ahead – uniformed – white men with crossbows and snarling wolf‑dog daemons – the Swiss Guard.
“Iorek!” cried Will at once. “Iorek Byrnison!” He could hear the bear crashing and snarling not far away, and hear the screams and cries of the soldiers unlucky enough to meet him.
But someone else came from nowhere to help them: Balthamos, in a blur of desperation, hurled himself between the children and the soldiers. The men fell back, amazed, as this apparition shimmered into being in front of them.